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Thea Osborne, accompanied by her beloved spaniel Hepzie, has had her fair share of unfortunate occurrences while house-sitting, and her new assignment for the mysterious Yvonne Parker is no exception. The isolated and somewhat unsettling village of Snowshill, has Thea on edge as soon as she arrives, and Hyacinth House – her new, rather cluttered home – does nothing to dispel such feelings. Soon enough, her intuition in this case proves to be right, and once again Thea becomes entangled in another horrifying murder.

Stevie Horsfall, a mischievous child from the village is found brutally strangled outside Hyacinth House, with his eccentric mother Gudrun as the prime suspect. Believing in Gudrun’s innocence, Thea, alongside Sonia Gladwin and her friend Drew Slocombe, work together to uncover a sinister plot, where seemingly separate lives are intertwined with secretive and strange relationships. This malicious web of suspects leads Thea through the lives of the villagers and their secrets, to London and beyond.

'Well realised with a credible cast of characters and a subtly built atmosphere of menace, Tope evocatively conveys the flavour of life in a typical Cotswolds village in a gently engaging mystery'Good Book Guide

'The author does a good job of evoking the claustrophobic atmosphere and petty rivalries lingering just below the idyllic surface in small villages...After reading several harrowing books in quick succession, I found this this a lovely change of pace: suspense without the brutality. Clearly, there is still room in all our hearts for the amateur detective and the country village settings.'Crime Fiction Lover